Personally, I never felt like there was any love between then in the first place, but I found this story irresistibly hot in a way that will leave you rubbing your nipples into submission.
You'll see what I mean:
Cheney Uncloaks His Frustration With Bush
'Statute of Limitations Has Expired' on Many Secrets, Former Vice President Says
See? It sounds like a Harlequin romance already.
After years of praising George W. Bush as a man of resolve, former vice president Richard B. Cheney now hints at a less flattering opinion of him. (By Roger L Wollenberg Via Bloomberg News)
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Now that the credits are done rolling...
In his first few months after stepping down, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the "far left" agenda of the new commander in chief.
After stepping down, a restless Dick Cheney threw himself into his work, virtually ignoring the outside world in his turmoil.
More private reflections, as his memoir takes shape in slashing longhand on legal pads, have opened a second front against Cheney's White House partner of eight years, George W. Bush.
Dick has clearly been stung by his former partner, George W Bush.
Cheney's disappointment with the former president surfaced recently in one of the informal conversations he is holding to discuss the book with authors, diplomats, policy experts and past colleagues. By habit, he listens more than he talks, but Cheney broke form when asked about his regrets.
Cheney has let his dissatisfaction with the relationship be known to his girlfriends. Usually quiet, when Bush is brought up the feelings bubble to the surface like a fresh, seething, internal wound.
"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming. It was clear that Cheney's doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times -- never apologize, never explain -- and Bush moved toward the conciliatory."
"The two used to be close, but Bush was straying. They didn't go out as much, and he wasn't listening to Cheney's uh...you know...needs. He wasn't listening to Cheney at all anymore or listening to too much gossip, it's hard to say. He wanted his freedom."
The two men maintain respectful ties, speaking on the telephone now and then, though aides to both said they were never quite friends. But there is a sting in Cheney's critique, because he views concessions to public sentiment as moral weakness. After years of praising Bush as a man of resolve, Cheney now intimates that the former president turned out to be more like an ordinary politician in the end.
The two talk on the phone every now and then but Cheney is clearly embittered...actually, why does that last line sound so familiar? I seem to hear it...oh wait, that's what ex-Obama supporters say.
Cheney's post-White House career is as singular as his vice presidency, a position he transformed into the hub of power. Drained of direct authority and cast aside by much of the public, he is no less urgently focused, friends and family members said, on shaping events.
The former vice president remains convinced of mortal dangers that few other leaders, in his view, face squarely. That fixed belief does much to explain the conduct that so many critics find baffling. He gives no weight, close associates said, to his low approval ratings, to the tradition of statesmanlike White House exits or to the grumbling of Republicans about his effect on the party brand.
John P. Hannah, Cheney's second-term national security adviser, said the former vice president is driven, now as before, by the nightmare of a hostile state acquiring nuclear weapons and passing them to terrorists. Aaron Friedberg, another of Cheney's foreign policy advisers, said Cheney believes "that many people find it very difficult to hold that idea in their head, really, and conjure with it, and see what it implies."
Cheney's friends have told him to stop trippin' but he just can't. He can't, damnit!
Actually, reading that for a second time, it just makes Cheney looks nuts. I know, I know, what did I think he was before, but really? Concessions to the public as moral weakness? Does he even go here, to America?
Also I hope I've stimulated some nightmares there.
